Happy Thanksgiving
A Disaster Foretold
By Lars Møller
The myth of Laocoön is tragic. In vain, he warned his countrymen in Troy against opening the gate to the colossal wooden horse left behind by Greek invaders. However, he was blinded by the gods who then had him killed by giant sea serpents.
So, it is not as if it has not been foretold. As a matter of fact, it has been the subject of countless essays, speeches, and novels. We cannot plead ignorance.
In retrospect, the “Rivers of Blood” speech by British Member of Parliament Enoch Powell, a modern Laocoön, on April 20, 1968, ranks as a milestone. It marked a historical break with the politely restrained, purely observational attitude to large-scale immigration. The thing is that Powell — and others with allegiance to Western civilization — had a premonition of danger: they clearly saw a disaster in the making. Unless drastic measures were taken to prevent it, chances were that it would unfold in the near future, deeply affecting the lives of their own children and grandchildren.
Back then, when there was yet time to reverse the course of events, warnings went largely unheeded; they were ridiculed, trivialized, or ignored. As the West was subsequently overrun by migrants from Africa, the Middle East, and beyond, however, the political conflict intensified and — without further ado — absorbed the revolutionary, sentimental-manipulative elements of traditional “class struggle.”
Socialists without a credible cause in the “postmodern” world were thrilled to identify a new underclass of “oppressed” who could replace the white workers of the past. Showing signs of self-conscious individualism and aspiring to the middle class of society, the latter — “ungratefully” as it was perceived — tended to renounce their well-meaners and self-appointed guardians. Inarticulate, illiterate Third-World proletarians, by contrast, provided social activists with the perfect material for fake solidarity, purposeful manipulation, and violent social upheaval.
Accordingly, socialists felt strongly encouraged to revise — opportunistically “update” — their narrative. Like destitute orphans after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they threw their violent cadres into the struggle for the Third World, demanding (a) atonement for the injustices of colonialism/racism, (b) open borders, and (3) relativistic tolerance of non-Western values (e.g. intolerant creeds) as imported by endless waves of migrants.
So far, warnings against the destruction of the West, whose relative success is due to the workings of Judeo-Christian institutions rather than natural resources (e.g. oil), have been arrogantly dismissed as the politically biased exaggerations of conservatives, if not “right-wing” radicals. With the self-righteous conviction of a revolutionary tribunal, progressive elites have been clamping down on public expressions of concern, accusing the presumptuous of “bigotry,” “racism,” or “xenophobia.” Thus, for a long time, Westerners turned their backs on the ominous events to avoid ridicule and defamation.
Now, we are here, in the middle of it. In the dark land of Dystopia. We have arrived in the future. Europe is burning. The disaster has occurred exactly as foretold. Those who once ridiculed the warnings — and the people who had the courage to step forward and alert their countrymen — refuse to take responsibility but persist in their treachery, telling other lies about how we should embrace diversity, be confident, and conform to the realities of a world changed beyond recognition. We are exhorted to go global in earnest and sacrifice our prosperity, welfare, and culture to accommodate all those who approach our borders from near and far.
In suburbs all over Western Europe, belligerent members of immigrant communities have taken control whether they patrol the streets as short-tempered, reckless gangsters, harassing civilians and authority persons alike, or solemnly preach their religious claim to supremacy and disdain for “infidels” in their houses of worship. The enemy is already in our midst. That is the tragedy of our time. Yet, half of us are not even willing to admit it.
As clarified by archaeological studies, the ancient city of Troy, located on the southern bank of the Hellespont, was repeatedly destroyed by invaders and rebuilt. In our time, the enemy that threatens us with annihilation has never encamped outside the gates of our cities, allowing us to prepare for battle. Tragically, we have been thoughtless and let it in ourselves a long time ago. We have been partly outwitted. However, some have also committed treason against the rest of us. At any rate, we are divided and vulnerable to outside attacks.
Deep in the West, the thousand Trojan horses of our enemy have been driven into position. Thus, it is not about a single horse as in the Aeneid (i.e. an epic by Roman poet Virgil), but infinitely many horses: roughly speaking, a horse for each and every city. For a long time, the features of the fake animals have been blindly worshiped by post-Christian pagans of the West in much the same way that Israelites worshiped the golden calf while waiting for Moses. Hypocrites to the core, the aberrant worshipers of our time also refuse to endure the absence of God, whom they themselves have denied, and are constantly in search of idols (e.g. Lenin, Stalin, and Mao).
However, the veil of mystery is being lifted now. The Trojan horses are cracking. In outrageous numbers, enemy invaders are spilling out of their arseholes. The damage to the West is conspicuous everywhere. Both gangsters and anti-Western protesters of foreign origin signal that they “own” the West. The social order is tottering. Ordinary people are robbed, shops looted, and cars ignited. If it occurs to anybody to protest against the deranged, supremacist behavior of the invaders, they are immediately condemned by the “secular clergy” of progressives.
If the Trojan horses were originally stabled in the suburbs, the invaders emerging from their bellies have already spread to society at large. As a result, neither women nor men visibly belonging to Western civilization can really feel safe anywhere. No sooner have they professed Christianity or declared themselves atheists than the invaders categorize them as inferior and indulge the impulse to dominate them.
The public space, where Westerners have loved to linger since antiquity, engaging in polemics, shopping for groceries or simply enjoying a family stroll, is now ravaged by the invaders. Peace and security are gone. Instead, a state of war prevails. Neither police nor courts, formerly pillars of a high-trust society, are capable of protecting anybody against the vagaries of stray barbarians. True enough, civilization has failed to put up a defense and is heading for dissolution.
No matter how woke, tolerant, and soft-spoken in political debates a person might be, it does not save his skin if he is cornered on his own in the wrong place at the wrong time. As it stands, wearing Christian or Jewish symbols in the open is tantamount to challenging fate. Sad to say, the well-organized, anti-Semitic riots taking place in Amsterdam a few weeks ago bring to mind the pogroms of tsarist Russia. The enemy is marching in our streets.
Our ancestral home in the West has been invaded and colonized by enemies from outside — Trojan horse invaders. Impatient to share in the unimaginable prosperity created by others, they have arrived at the invitation of those socialist idolaters who hate the West and strive to harm it whatever it takes. The disaster is complete.
We really should have listened to the Laocoön of our time, the late Enoch Powell, and burned the Trojan horses in time. Now, however, the West (Europe) has been taken. Those, who remain, will pay the price for the cunning of the enemy and the primary betrayal on the part of their own countrymen.
In the Aeneid, Greek soldiers jump out of the wooden horse at night and open the city gate for the rest of the invading army. Likewise, migrant invaders of the West have become so numerous by now that they can blackmail incumbent governments and cause the borders to be opened for even more migrants.
Insofar as the West has been in conflict with itself all along, the decision about the willful collapse of civilization has been characterized by ambivalence. Now, however, the suicide seems to be a reality. In Europe, at least, there is no turning back.
UK: ‘Utter woke gibberish!’ University of Cambridge issues health and safety posters on how to use stairs
Cambridge University has sparked controversy by installing health and safety posters warning some of Britain’s brightest students about the dangers of using mobile phones on stairs.
The prestigious institution has placed notices across its campus instructing undergraduates on basic stair safety, prompting criticism from students who feel they are being treated like children.
The safety campaign features stark warnings about staircase accidents.
The posters depict an image of a man lying at the bottom of stairs while holding a mobile phone.
A clear message reads: “Heads up, phones down! Don’t be the next accident. Thank you for not using your phone.”
The university has gone further by including a QR code on the posters, linking students to a dedicated website, according to The Sun.
The website allows students and staff to report any accidents or near-misses related to mobile phone use on stairs.
Students have reacted with bemusement and frustration to the safety campaign.
“Why would anybody report a near miss episode of staircase use?” questioned student Gennaro Dello Ioio.
“Hi, I just saw this guy who was using his phone while going down the stairs, he tripped, and almost fell.”
He sarcastically added: “Will the university immediately send its police to arrest him?”
One student, who wished to remain anonymous, was more direct in their criticism.
“Utter woke gibberish,” they said. “Why are they treating the cleverest young people in the UK like blithering idiots?”
The university has defended its safety campaign, pointing to real incidents that prompted the measure.
“Some may find them amusing but they were put up following a number of accidents, and near misses, where people were using phones as they descended stairs,” a university spokesperson said.
The institution emphasised its commitment to student welfare.
“The university takes the health and safety of its staff and students seriously,” the spokesperson added.
https://www.gbnews.com/news/cambridge-university-woke-stairs-health-and-safety-posters
Labour’s Authoritarian Crack Down: Respect Orders to Non-Crime Hate Incidents + BBC Verify Bias
On today’s #NCFNewspeak, NCF Director Peter Whittle, Senior Fellows Rafe Heydel-Mankoo and Dr. Philip Kiszely and Amy Gallagher of Stand Up To Woke discuss: * BBC Verify bias exposed: Who will verify BBC Verify? * Labour’s new Respect Orders: What are they and should we be worried? * The bizarre list of Non-Crime Hate Incidents. 65 people a day have a NCHI recorded against them.
Male Surf Coach Registers For Women’s Surf Contest To Highlight Hypocrisy Of “Inclusive” Sport Policies
Dr. Pillari at WOW. Supplied. PHOTO: Guy Kawasaki.Avi Silverberg, a powerlifting coach who has worked with Team Canada, self-identified as a woman temporarily to participate at the meet, which was held in Lethbridge, Alberta. Silverberg was attempting to highlight the unfair advantage males have when competing in women’s athletics. In participating in the event, Silverberg unofficially broke the Alberta women’s bench press record for the 84+ kilograms category.
Trans activists are condemning a male surf coach from Santa Cruz after he participated in a women’s surf contest in protest of gender self-identification policies. Calder Nold, a respected local surf coach once highlighted for saving a baby sea lion, registered for Women on Waves to prove a point about allowing males to compete in women’s sport.
The Women on Waves (WOW) Surf Contest has been held annually in the community of Capitola, California, since 1996. The event is a charity fundraiser that gives female entrants the ability to raise money for the causes they support both through surfing and an open water swim race. But this year’s iteration of the event, which was held the last weekend of October, has left a debate lingering in Capitola after a surf coach admitted to entering simply to protest the competition’s rules and lack of transparency.
Calder Nold, a male surfer and surf instructor, was registered to the Master’s division of the contest by his student and friend, Dr. EmilyAnne Pillari, who told Reduxx that their intention was to challenge the contest’s lack of transparency surrounding its eligibility criteria.
Pillari explains that despite being a “women’s” contest, there were no questions on the WOW registration form pertaining to sex or gender, and that males who identified as transgender had previously been allowed to compete. As an act of protest, she encouraged Nold to participate, and submitted a registration on his behalf.
When Nold arrived at the contest site, he was “assailed with questions” about his “gender identity” by two event organizers. Speaking to Reduxx, Nold says he did not misrepresent himself at any point during the registration process, and instead followed the very vague guidelines the contest had established.
“We were not sneaking. We did not lie. We did not have to fabricate anything. I did not even have to identify as anything. I participated based on the exact requirements,” Nold says. “The only place the word ‘woman’ appears is in the contest title. Everything else referred to ‘people who love the water’ or ‘people who support women’s surfing.’ That’s me. I fit that bill!”
Nold continues by highlighting the fact that there was “no information given to [female] participants” on the contest allowing trans-identified males, prompting his concerns that some female participants would be placed in the position of unwittingly competing against men.
“If, for example, one of my physically small students entered the women’s competition to unknowingly face a man – of my stature and strength – who identifies as a woman, and then she loses… she risks becoming discouraged or losing her passion for surfing or competition. For her to feel that she wasn’t or wouldn’t be enough to compete. That thought, to me, is a horrible one.”
Pillari says Nold’s entry into the WOW contest immediately set off alarm bells amongst competitors and organizers alike.
“Everyone on the beach was wondering why the heck a dude was out there in the contest. From every conversation I heard among the spectators, the sentiment ranged from confusion to outrage. No one thought it was fair, people wanted him to get kicked out,” Plllari explains.
So upset over Nold’s presence, Pillari says that one of the women in the competition immediately sought to have him disqualified.
“There was one competitor watching his heat who called out with gleeful satisfaction when she thought he had interfered with another surfer’s wave, thereby disqualifying him. Knowing she was in his age group, I couldn’t help but hear the relief in her voice over his potential interference call — she didn’t want to surf against him.”
But after dominating both of the heats he participated in, easily out-paddling his female competitors, Nold was disqualified. Pillari and Nold explain that it was because judges claimed Nold was not wearing his jersey in compliance with a sudden, unannounced change in the competition’s jersey policies. Judges reportedly argued that because Nold was not wearing his jersey “properly,” they could not identify him for scoring.
“It is not in the contest rules that participants have to wear the jersey, and he was unable to wear the jersey appropriately because he is recovering from a shoulder injury,” Pillari says. “Hard to say that they couldn’t tell who he was.”
“In the conversations we had with the event organizers over the course of the weekend, it was very clear that they thought that if Nold identified as a female, then it would have been okay for him to be out there,” Pillari said in a statement she provided to Reduxx.
“This is why I entered him. Everyone who saw this spectacle could agree that he didn’t belong out there … His positivity and encouragement of the other girls in the lineup couldn’t make up for the undeniable fact that he is a man,” Pillari notes. “And so, I ask, would it be so different if he thought he was a woman? Would it change anything about his ability to out-paddle the strongest female in the lineup? If he had shaved his beard and painted his nails, would he have been any less male?”
Pillari concludes by stating that she is not opposed to trans-identified males participating in sports, but that they should not be permitted to enter events marketed as women-only.
“I am not calling for men to stop surfing. I am not hating them for existing. I just don’t want them competing in an event that is for women.”
Speaking to Reduxx, Nold emphasized that his intention was to draw attention to the hypocrisy of sporting contests that allow males to participate on the basis of identity, and to give women a platform to be able to air their grievances against gender ideology.
“The idea was to put myself out there to be a target, but also to serve as a platform and a base for women to exercise their freedom of speech. As much as I did not wish to stand on the winner’s podium at a women’s competition, it was discussed and decided to be a necessary action to make the point,” Nold explains.
“I sought to have women be able to direct at me everything they truly felt about these policies. Because they may not be allowed to, or may feel fearful to say it about males identifying as women competing or even know that that was a possibility. It was a way to open up speech to people that may feel bound in silence and to be able to speak up indirectly.”
Despite an increasing amount of negative media coverage from proponents of gender ideology, Nold says he has no regrets about what he did and no intention to walk anything back.
“I don’t do things I am ashamed of or regret. There is no shame in standing up for the rights women have fought so hard for. There is no ill-intent to what I did and no political agenda behind it. I put myself on the line for women and their right to women’s competition as a whole and [Pillari] did too. I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t truly believe in what I was being asked to take part in, in the name of protecting women and their rights,” Nold says. “Any anger or frustration directed at myself or [Pillari] by event organizers is projection of their own frustration with themselves and their inability to be responsible about their lack of transparency and lack of ability to protect women’s competitive sports.”
Nold and Pillari’s action was not well-received by local trans activists and supporters of gender self-identification, one of whom took to local outlet Lookout Santa Cruz to express her anger.
“At first, the contest organizers had assumed perhaps Nold did identify as a woman. But then, as word got around the Esplanade that day, we learned he had been entered for nefarious reasons — a personal vendetta on the part of a competitor who opposes Women On Waves’ inclusion of trans women, at least two of whom competed in the contest,” local journalist and trans activist Liza Monroy wrote in a piece titled “Why did I have to surf with a cis man at Capitola’s Women On Waves?” Monroy had competed against Nold in the Master’s category prior to his disqualification.
“Her argument – that if trans women compete, so should cisgender men – shows zero empathy or subtlety. It offers no space for grace, complexity or understanding,” Monroy wrote.
Another WOW participant, Victoria Tatum, was quoted by Monroy as condemning Pillari, adding that Nold’s participation was wrong because he is male.
“What is wrong with having a male in the contest is that it’s a women’s contest, period,” Tatum said. “In my mind, this includes transgender women, but not males.”
Scotia Macgillivray, a trans-identified male who competed at WOW this year, similarly claimed that there was “no similarity” between males and trans-identified males participating in women’s surfing, adding that he had become so “weakened” by female hormones that he could “barely unscrew beverage container tops.”
In her article, Monroy also suggested that Pillari was simply bitter for having previously “lost” to a trans-identified male, something Pillari clarified to Reduxx was untrue.
Responding to Monroy’s article, Nold expressed confusion as to why some women continued to advocate for gender ideology.
“It is challenging to see some women just… give their hard-fought rights away and attack each other… And it’s interesting that some are so worried about hurting the feelings of trans-identifying people – but what about the women that are hurting and being forgotten? Women are not just fodder. In dismantling the guidelines of their sporting opportunities, we could potentially be creating traumatic moments in these women’s lives,” he says. “They work hard, train hard, and sacrifice to be in the position to reach their highest potential, and then have that jeopardized and pulled away from them. They are not less important than anyone else,” Nold says. “Any negative experience any other group has gone through and experienced- women have gone through, too… and continue to have to. Not just from men, but from themselves and a society disillusioned.”
This is not the first time a man has entered an “inclusive” women’s sport competition to protest policies which allow trans-identified males to compete.
Last year in Canada, a male powerlifting coach self-identified into the women’s category at the Heroes Classic Powerlifting Meet and broke the local women’s bench press record in an effort to protest gender self-identification policies in sport.
🏋️♂️ Team Canada powerlifting coach, Avi Silverberg just broke the Alberta WOMEN's bench press record in the 84+ kg category at the "Heroes Classic."
— ICONS (@icons_women) March 27, 2023
Former record holder, trans-identifying male, Anne Andres had a front row view as Silverberg mocked the discriminatory CPU policy… pic.twitter.com/ajhUJPB4gc
Avi Silverberg, a powerlifting coach who has worked with Team Canada, self-identified as a woman temporarily to participate at the meet, which was held in Lethbridge, Alberta. Silverberg was attempting to highlight the unfair advantage males have when competing in women’s athletics. In participating in the event, Silverberg unofficially broke the Alberta women’s bench press record for the 84+ kilograms category.
Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Winston Churchill, Britain’s Greatest Leader + Debunking Myths
To mark the 150th anniversary of Sir Winston Churchill’s birth (30 November 1874), we present this special episode of #NCFWhittle with our Senior Fellow Rafe Heydel-Mankoo, historian, Churchill specialist and former board member of the International Churchill Society. Rafe and Peter Whittle reflect on the life and times of arguably our greatest national figure. They explore his great achievements and failures and also debunk many of the myths that exist today (Bengal Famine etc.).
‘If I ever manage to catch you, I will behead you like Samuel Paty; Inshallah you will be beheaded; I will play football with your dirty head’ – French professor receives death threats
A teacher filed charges on Tuesday, November 12, after receiving death threats via email, CNEWS learned Friday from a source close to the case and from the prosecutor’s office. The alleged perpetrator wrote that he would ‘behead’ the teacher ‘like Samuel Paty’.
On Tuesday November 12, a professor who taught at a university in Paris filed a complaint in Juvisy-sur-Orge after receiving several death threats by email a few days earlier. The threats started on November 7. Over the course of that day, the teacher is said to have received four threatening emails.
The next day, the teacher received a fifth email threatening him with death, CNEWS learnt from a source close to the case. In these emails, which could be accessed, the author of the threats wrote: ‘If I catch you, I will behead you like Samuel Paty (…) Inshallah you will be beheaded (…) I will play football with your filthy head’ (sic). ‘It’s only a matter of time. You will pay dearly for all the damage you have done to the students. I will cut your head off you white piece of shit,’ it continues. In another email, the suspect claims to have ‘tracked down’ the victim and repeats his threats: ‘You will pay very dearly for this,’ he writes. CNews
‘I won’t claim that Milan is a safe city,’ admits left-wing mayor after damning stats show disproportionate levels of migrant crime
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi has announced the deployment of 600 additional police officers to Milan, citing concerns over integration challenges and rising crime rates, particularly in areas with significant immigrant populations.
The announcement follows recent unrest in the Corvetto district, where a 19-year-old Egyptian resident, Ramy Elgaml, died in a road accident after a police chase, sparking mass protests by the considerable immigrant population.
During a meeting on security with Milan’s prefect Claudio Sgaraglia and Police Chief Vittorio Pisani, Piantedosi confirmed that the reinforcements, planned before the Corvetto unrest, will enhance territorial control and improve public safety.
He offered damning statistics on the disproportionate involvement immigrants have in committing crime, noting that 65 percent of all offenses in the city are committed by foreign nationals despite representing 20 percent of all residents.
“These figures highlight integration challenges that must be addressed to reduce marginalization and its consequences,” Piantedosi stated. He denied comparisons to the recent Parisian suburban riots, calling them “very exaggerated,” but acknowledged that the Corvetto unrest signals issues requiring attention.
The Italian minister criticized the reliance on issuing residence permits as a solution to integration issues, pointing out the need for more comprehensive measures. He highlighted efforts already underway, noting over 40 high-impact operations and 162 arrests in Corvetto this year, but accepted that much more needed to be done.
“The second-most important city in Italy after Rome deserves all the attention it can get,” he added.
Milan’s left-wing mayor Beppe Sala echoed the need for investments in public housing and community centers to foster integration and accepted that the Italian city can no longer be considered a safe place to live.
“I won’t claim Milan is a safe city, but it is making an effort to address challenges faced by all international cities,” he said.
Sala claimed that migrant crime was a result of shortcomings in creating spaces for young immigrants to engage positively within their communities, linking the lack of such centers to increased alienation in the suburbs.
With over 60,000 public housing units out of Milan’s 800,000 apartments, Sala described the distribution as “disproportionate,” emphasizing the importance of equitable urban planning.
Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, whose League party first made its name in the northern Italian city and the surrounding area, remarked on the meeting in a post on X.
“Minister Piantedosi’s data are crystal clear. Yet for the left, it is a non-problem, they seek justifications to the point of falsifying reality,” he wrote.
“Woe to anyone who criticizes the dogma of indiscriminate reception at all costs, woe to anyone who criticizes environments in which foreign crime thrives in our cities, woe to anyone who wants to harshly apply the law to intervene in an increasingly unsustainable situation,” he quipped.
Musk urges Irish to ‘vote for freedom’ as general election starts
Elon Musk has urged the Irish to “vote for freedom” as ballot boxes open for the country’s general election.
The X CEO has had a contentious relationship with the island’s ruling government over the past number of years, including his denouncement of Irish plans to implement legislation criminalising hate speech.
The US tech billionaire has now taken to his social media platform to address people in the country heading to the polls on November 29, reposting on the same day a video by online commentator Michael O’Keeffe urging them to “take our country back”.
“The people of Ireland will vote for freedom,” Musk wrote alongside an Irish tricolour emoji.
Some politicians have reposted the rallying cry, with Independent Senator Sharon Keogan celebrating the impact social media has had on the Irish electoral process before urging the public to vote against Fine Gael, a member of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s European People’s Party in the European Parliament.
“[Fine Gael] FG will take away your free speech. They will jail you for the things they find offensive and because they’re afraid of the truth,” she said on X on November 29.
“Vote out the parties pushing woke policies and ideologies that harm women and children.”
Keogan added that members of the public should prioritise voting for independent candidates rather than those in any establishment party.
Such a rallying cry may well gel with voters, with between one-fifth and one-third of the public likely to give their first preference to independent candidates, as well as those from smaller parties, according to latest polls.
Part of the driving force behind the growing independence push has been the increasing prevalence of immigration in Irish life, with parties maintaining a largely pro-open borders position despite the public overwhelmingly favouring stricter controls.
This attitude shift is unlikely to translate to change in government. Polls currently expect a coalition involving both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil (Renew) to be reinstalled, likely bolstered by a third, smaller party in the form of Labour (S&D) or the Social Democrats (NI).
There is an outside chance of an upset in the form of a left-wing Sinn Féin victory, with the party’s support returning to an upward trend after its perceived weak stance on immigration had caused its working-class voter base to look elsewhere.
The last Ipsos poll published before the election found that the party was just one percentage point behind leaders Fianna Fáil, with any further growth likely to see it draw or overtake the incumbent government faction.
Polls are set to close at 10pm local time (11pm CET), with an exit poll expected soon after.
The full result of the election is likely to be unclear for several days due to the country’s proportional representation system involving a single transferrable vote.
Ireland took nearly a full week to declare the outcome of its June 7 European Parliament election, making it one of the last member-states to declare who it would be sending to Brussels.
https://brusselssignal.eu/2024/11/musk-urges-irish-to-vote-for-freedom-as-general-election-starts
Outrage over broadcast shows France’s abortion lobby will not tolerate the smallest challenge
“In 2022, 234,300 abortions were registered in France. According to the Worldometer Institute, abortion is also the leading cause of death in the world: 73 million in 2022, i.e. 52 percent of all deaths.”
These words, spoken by Catholic journalist Aymeric Pourbaix on February 25 on his televised program En quête d’esprit (“The quest for the spirit”) on the CNews TV channel, were punished on November 13 when ARCOM, the independent public regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communications, ordered the private channel to pay a 100,000 euro fine (roughly $105,000 US ) for having broadcast “manifestly inaccurate” information, as LifeSiteNews has reported.
Remarkably, ARCOM did not take into account the fact that the political debate over the enshrinement of abortion rights in the French constitution was in full swing when Pourbaix of CNews presented Worldometer’s statistics.
The heavy fine is symptomatic of the abortion “taboo” that prevents any kind of meaningful debate over abortion in France and that led to declaring access to “voluntary interruption of pregnancy” a constitutional right earlier this year.
The fine illustrates the injustice of French laws that refuse to recognize the unborn as human beings. Mere days before, humorist and comedian Pierre Palmade had been given a five-year prison sentence for having seriously injured three members of a family in February of last year while driving under the influence of cocaine. Despite the survivors’ efforts, he was not indicted for having caused the death of the unborn child of the then 6-months-pregnant victim, because “fetuses” do not have a juridical status as persons in French law.
Interestingly, public opinion was horrified that Palmade could not be sentenced for the death of a viable unborn baby.
CNews was fined for having committed the unthinkable by equating the induced death of an unborn child in his or her mother’s womb to the death of any other human being. ARCOM’s decision stated that the station had broadcast a “manifest inaccuracy” which “was not contradicted by any of the other people present on set” when it presented abortion as “the leading cause of death in the world” ahead of cancer and tobacco.
“Part of the sequence in question equates abortion with a cause of death and, as a consequence, it equates an embryo or fetus that could not be born alive because of an abortion with a deceased person, even though in law they are not considered persons. Abortion cannot therefore be presented as a cause of mortality. (…) This source [Worldometer] merely states that, according to the World Health Organization, 73 million abortions are induced worldwide every year,” reads ARCOM’s decision. It states also that the channel violated its “obligation of honesty and rigor in its presentation and treatment of information.”
In condemning it, ARCOM endorsed the uproar that hailed CNews’ breaking of the abortion taboo, about which more later. First the ruling’s inconsistencies and deception deserve to be brought to light.
If “an embryo or fetus (…) could not be born alive,” this can only be because he or she died before he or she was born, and he or she could not have died if her or she had not previously been alive.
In a country like China, which made extensive use of abortion, particularly forced abortion, as part of its one-child policy from 1971 to 2016 (and now employing a three-child policy), the Communist government itself officially estimates that 400 million births have been “avoided.” Officially, between 1971 and 2011, 336 million abortions were performed by Chinese doctors. How can you fail to correlate these two statistics? Hundreds of millions of human beings in gestation were not born because they had ceased to live – which means they had died.
As mentioned above, French case law does not recognize that unborn children have personal rights. At the same time, however, the French Civil Code provides that “all those born or conceived at the time of the opening of a succession are capable of inheriting” (unless the child is stillborn… and therefore indeed “dead” before birth).
Because abortion is legal in France – one might even say that it is aggressively so – legislators and judges will contort themselves in order to explain away the fact that an unborn child has full rights as an heir while growing in its mother’s womb while at the same time not having juridical status as a person with legal capacity.
Other countries, on the other hand, grant strong protection or a form of recognition to the unborn child because of its identity as a human being in its own right: this was previously the case in Ireland, where the conceived child’s “right to be born” was recognized. It is still the case in Australia when a woman loses her unborn child in a road accident, for example. Many American states now protect the life of the unborn child and prohibit abortion almost entirely in the name of the conceived child’s status as a human being. In these countries and states, abortion is considered as a cause of death. And, therefore, when talking about global mortality, from a global point of view, it should be at least possible to discuss the issue.
As for the figures presented by “Worldometer,” it is no coincidence that they are included in the section of the site that details health data. This presents 11 causes of death (infectious disease, influenza, maternal and infant mortality, AIDS, cancer, malaria, smoking, alcoholism, suicide, road accidents), to which are only added statistics on HIV infections, the number of cigarettes smoked per day and spending on drugs. There is nothing else, apart from the abortion count. What else can the section be than a mortality chart, since it exclusively presents causes of death and behavior that makes death more probable?
Clearly, ARCOM has taken it onto itself the responsibility to protect an official “truth:” “Abortion does not kill a human being.” It is a diktat or compulsory thought that no argument, no statistic, and no analysis can or may contradict – at least not on a TV channel that is officially licensed to transmit its shows on the national digital television network TNT.
When CNews broke the taboo last February, multiple media outlets struck out at the TV channel. It was presented as being “in the bosom of ultra-conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré,” a successful Catholic businessman who has taken control of a number of print and broadcast media in France.
In the French mainstream media, billionaires are only acceptable when they are pro-abortion, pro-contraception, and pro-“reproductive rights.” The legacy media will never disparage Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Mike Bloomberg, Ted Turner and other super-rich promoters of population control, whose effectiveness is in direct proportion to their fabulous wealth.
Sadly, several of CNews’ star anchors immediately presented their “apologies” for the infographic Aymeric Pourbaix presented. Laurence Ferrari, a mainstream media journalist, was the first to mention on X that it was “error that should not have occurred.”
“It is absolutely impossible to compare these figures [on abortion] and to mirror them with mortality numbers linked to cancer or smoking,” Ferrari declared the day after her colleague Aymeric Pourbaix’s show. She asserted that “calling into question” the “right” to abortion was unthinkable. She also expressed her support for those “around the world (…) who are fighting to obtain the right to control their own bodies, and for those who have lost their lives because they were unable to access abortion.”
Another star presenter, Sonia Mabrouk, who publicly upholds France’s “Christian spiritual roots” and who authored a book titled Reconquering the Sacred: the Survival of the West depends on the Sacred, was also quick to distance herself from her colleague’s “controversial” remarks. Supposedly right-wing and Christian anchor Christine Kelly also presented apologies.
Citing a “technical error” in an attempt to exonerate the channel, Gérald-Brice Viret, CEO of Canal+, the parent company of CNews, said that the sequence “had precisely been removed during final editing and should therefore never have been broadcast.”
Vincent Bolloré did not comment on the incident.
Four representatives of his media outlet, including Ferrari and Mabrouk, were heard in a scheduled audition by the French National Assembly’s investigative committee regarding the renewal of CNews digital television network approval, four days after the incident. The audition took place on February 29 and gave rise to questions about the abortion statistics on the part of the legislators. The CNews panel groveled, using words such as “vile,” “unpardonable,” “unacceptable,” “traumatic,” “unspeakable,” “dramatic and catastrophic,” “a disgrace for us all.”
None of this softened ARCOM’s approach.
CNews also failed to stand up for itself, especially when it came to the accusation that Worldometer’s statistics had been used improperly.
ARCOM’s November 13 ruling made clear that, it its view, “the publisher’s allegations that an error led to the broadcast of the wrong version of the sequence have no bearing on the characterization of the breach.”
Many public figures, including the president of the extreme left “La France insoumise” party, Mathilde Panot, had beseiged the regulatory body with complaints. “As a reminder, the offense of obstructing abortion is punishable by law in France,” Panot said, accusing CNews of moving “ever further towards the despicable.”
The deputy health minister at the time, Frédéric Valletoux, called Pourbaix’s comments “outrageous.” “More than ever, Emmanuel Macron’s commitment to enshrine abortion in the Constitution is an essential step forward,” Valletoux stated.
In view of all this, it is hard to believe that, despite the growing audience for En quête d’esprit, the numbers it cited and the mention of abortion as a cause of mortality could have had the slightest impact on the goals of the French abortion lobby. But the latter will not tolerate even the slightest challenge. Like a steam roller or an armored tank, it crushes all opposition, however puny. The media have been warned: if they go against the officialized culture of death, there will be hell to pay.